LEE SMITH: Ukraine Is the Ruling Class’s Latest Propaganda Ploy.

It would be useful to have insight into Putin’s thinking, especially now with a massive land war in the middle of Europe giving rise to a powerful anti-American bloc led by Russia and China. But don’t count on America’s national-security establishment to provide that insight. For they squandered their credibility with Russiagate. From former officials like ex-Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and retired spy chiefs like James Clapper and John Brennan to Biden deputies like National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the Pentagon’s top strategist, Colin Kahl, and the entire Democratic Party and its media apparatus, the lies of America’s political class left the republic vulnerable to destructive forces.

Why did they lie? Policymakers, spy chiefs, and military officials rightly deceive foreign powers to protect and advance the US national interest. But these men and women lied to the American people about the president they elected. Then they lied about everything. Public US institutions and private industries have spent the last six years mustering their formidable powers to break the US working and middle classes. Why? Because lying is part of the logic of war, and America’s oligarchy is at war with the American people.

Earlier: Here Comes the Limited Hangout. America’s Nixonian press corps takes a page from the Watergate playbook to try and cover up its active role in the criminal Russiagate hoax.

Related: 2022 has become the preventing World War 3 election.

JIM TREACHER: Wake Me When a Republican Accuses Ketanji Brown Jackson of Rape. Until then, it’s all fair game.

WELL, PEOPLE WERE SAYING THAT LETHAL INJECTION IS INHUMANE: South Carolina Corrections Department Brings Back Firing Squads For Executions.

OKAY, GROOMERS: California Disney Employees Stage Walk-Out over Florida’s Parental-Rights Bill.

Related: Groomer Teachers Are Absolutely Determined to Talk About Their Sexual Fetishes With Your Children.

‘CREDIBLY ACCUSED:’ The Left Takes the GOP’s Bait.

For simply protesting his innocence, Kavanaugh was besmirched as the “personification of white, male privilege.” His anger over this career-ending allegation was reframed as the self-entitled rage reserved for “privileged white men who are furious about being finally held to account” or “trauma for white men unaccustomed to trauma.” The substance of the claim against him was for many immaterial. His torment was a karmic comeuppance due to those who share his accidents of birth.

This history lesson is necessary, in part, because the left is busily reminding the nation that they subordinated any universally agreed-upon understanding of justice to their pursuit of a political scalp. Republicans have only invoked the mistreatment of their nominees to establish a favorable contrast. Their strategy is to observe as much decorum as possible to showcase the impropriety of their opponents. Republicans are fortunate that progressives in political media seem happy to oblige.

Meanwhile, a Politico headline screams, “How the GOP’s dirtiest slur got a new life.”

A STUDY GUIDE FOR DEFENSIVE GUN USE.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX will launch OneWeb’s satellites following Russia’s ultimatum. “OneWeb will turn to a competitor to ferry its remaining first-generation internet satellites to space after Russia’s Roscosmos space agency issued an ultimatum to the company at the start of the month. On Monday, OneWeb announced an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The private firm will ferry the remainder of OneWeb’s constellation fleet, with the first launch scheduled for later this year.”

DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE:” DOJ collected Project Veritas emails but didn’t reveal it to federal judge overseeing case. “Clearly the FBI is heavily invested in this investigation, an investigation which seems unusual from the outset. . . . It’s impossible to believe any of it would be happening if the owner of the diary weren’t the president’s daughter which makes the whole thing appear blatantly political.” It appears that way because it is. And it’s not just the President’s daughter. It’s the Democratic President’s daughter. I doubt Barron Trump’s diary would have gotten such solicitude from the utterly political and compromised DOJ.

BE PREPARED: First Alert SCO7CN Combination Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector with Voice and Location. #CommissionEarned

SO NICE HAVING THE GROWNUPS BACK IN CHARGE: ‘Her Office Has A Higher Turnover Than Taco Bell’: Kamala Harris’ National Security Adviser Latest Staffer To Quit.

BLOWBACK: How Russia Sent Ukraine Racing Into the “Energy Eurozone.”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Portland Children’s Hospital Gives Kids Tips on ‘Tucking’ and Sex Shops.

WELL, THAT’S INTERESTING BEYOND COVID, IF TRUE: Oral drug prevents death from COVID-19 in old mice by reversing immune aging.

THADDEUS MCCOTTER: The Democrats’ Magical Thinking Redux: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Appeasement.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Democratic Party is its penchant for magical thinking. Indeed, when discussing their Leftist foreign policy, it makes more sense for one to translate the word “diplomacy” as “magic.” Nowhere is the Democrats’ magical thinking more readily apparent than in their lust to negotiate a deal with the Iranian regime over the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Appeasement” – oops, “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, the goal of which is to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.

Four elementary questions exemplify the Democrats’ magical foreign policy and that of some of its cohorts in the P5+1 regarding the Iranian nuke pact.

First, Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful, and it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon. So, why is the JCPOA necessary?

Hmmm…. This is a tough one. After all, negotiations require trust between the parties, namely Iran and the P5+1 – the U.K., France, Germany, the European Union, communist China, and Putin’s Russia. Trust isn’t the first virtue that springs to mind when examining the relations between the members of the negotiating team’s roster. (More on that, below.) And honesty sure isn’t the forte of the Iranian regime.

Enter Democrats’ magical thinking: Iran is simply staking out a negotiating position, one born of long years of defending itself against the U.S.’ provocations. Once the deal is signed, Iran will be secure and free to be honest in its diplomatic dealings.

Read the whole thing.

OKAY, GROOMER: Portland Children’s Hospital Gives Kids Tips on ‘Tucking’ and Sex Shops.

IS IT COVID, OR THE REACTION TO COVID? COVID-19 may lead to delays in treatment for gynecologic cancers.

GREAT MOMENTS IN HYGIENE THEATER:

Shot: San Clemente city officials fill skatepark with 37 tons of sand to prevent skaters from using it.

—KUSI TV, April 20th, 2020.

Chaser: A California city filled a skate park with 37 tons of sand to deter skateboarders, but dirt bikers decided it was their turf.

Connor Ericsson, 25, posted videos on his Instagram page this week, showing him and his friends zipping through the sand on their bikes, then helping skateboarders shovel out the sand “so they could do some social shredding.”

“I think it’s a big joke, these kids are cooped up inside their house and just want to go out and have some fun,” Ericsson told KUSI News.

—Business Insider, April 23rd, 2020.

NEWT GINGRICH: Kamala Harris May Be the ‘Dumbest Person’ Elected as Vice President.

THE DEPRIVATION OF THE PROLES IS TO BE CELEBRATED: Professor: Hate inflation? Take the bus, don’t eat meat, cut back on pet care.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: How the War on Ukraine Will Shatter Global Food Security.

Russia is the leading exporter of wheat, while Ukraine is the fourth-largest exporter. Together, these countries account for nearly one-third of total wheat exports in the world.

Much of Russia’s and Ukraine’s wheat exports are sent to the Middle East and Africa.

For Egypt, which is the top importer of wheat and has more than one-quarter of its population living below the poverty line, Russia and Ukraine are the sources of 78 percent of its wheat imports.

In addition to wheat, Russia and Ukraine are large exporters of fertilizer. Russia, and its ally Belarus, account for 42 percent of all potash exports, which is used for producing fertilizer.

The supply disruptions from the war on Ukraine will particularly impact the agricultural sector in India – one of the largest importers of fertilizer. India sources one-third of its potash from Russia and Belarus. Its agriculture sector is sizable and makes up 15 percent of the country’s GDP and provides employment for 60 percent of its workforce.

“Food security” is a recent notion — and a fragile one, too.

OUR SOURCE WAS THE NEW YORK TIMES: ‘Priceless!’ NY Times asked Candace Owens where she got her ideas about Ukraine (then it got awkward for the NYT).

OK, that's pretty funny. https://t.co/JcVTUxmnC2

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) March 21, 2022

(Classical reference in headline.)

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Sanctions on Russia Pit the West Against the Rest of the World: Woke Democrats are less welcome than Trumpian populists in many countries.

Western arm-twisting and the powerful effect of bank sanctions ensure a certain degree of sanctions compliance and support for symbolic U.N. resolutions condemning Russian aggression. But the lack of non-Western enthusiasm for America’s approach to Mr. Putin’s war is a phenomenon that U.S. policy makers ignore at their peril. Just as Western policy makers, lost in fantasies about building a “posthistorical world,” failed to grasp the growing threat of great-power competition, they have failed to note the development of a gap between the West and the rest of the world that threatens to hand the revisionist powers major opportunities in coming years. The Biden administration appears not to understand the gap between Washington and what used to be called the Third World, the degree to which its own policies contribute to the divide, or the opportunities this gap creates for China.

Opposition to Russia looked like a global slam dunk to many in the West. World opinion would so robustly oppose Moscow’s attack that countries like China would pay a high political price for failing to jump onto the anti-Russia bandwagon.

That is not how it is working. Some countries, like America’s disheartened and alienated Middle East allies, worry about backing a withdrawing Washington against an ascendant Russia. Others balance their detestation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine against other concerns. Many non-Western countries fear the consequences of Western responses to Russia’s behavior more than they fear Russia, don’t trust the West’s willingness or ability to manage the economic consequences of the war in ways that protect the interests of non-Western states, and are shocked by the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s central bank—a weapon they fear will one day be directed against them.

While enthusiastic Western liberals hail the imposition of sanctions on Russia, the increased willingness of the Western powers to weaponize the global economic system horrifies leaders in many countries who think the West is too powerful already. Many Brazilians have long feared that Western environmentalists intend to block the development of the Amazon basin. They worry that climate activists might force the Federal Reserve and other Western banks to “save the planet” by imposing sanctions on Brazil. Policy makers in India and elsewhere share many of these fears as they see environmental campaigners using global economic institutions to impose their agenda on countries with different priorities.

Mr. Putin’s claim that an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet strikes Western liberals as self-serving propaganda, but his arguments resonate more widely than most liberals understand. The Trump administration’s unilateral imposition of tough sanctions against Iran heightened international awareness of how much power the global economic system gives the U.S. But woke Democrats using economic sanctions to impose their views on climate, gender and other issues are even less welcome in many countries than Trumpian populists.

To those who share this perspective, an unpredictable America at the helm of the liberal West is a greater threat to the independence of many postcolonial states than Russian or even Chinese ambition could ever be.

That seems plausible. The Chinese government is predictably self-serving. Western elites are unpredictably self-aggrandizing.

Plus: “What used to be called the Global South does not always share the priorities and perspectives of Yale Law School.”

Poor Yale Law. It’s become a global icon of woke stupidity and arrogance.

ICYMI: Biden’s Risk Aversion is Escalating Putin’s War.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Kamala Harris, Mystic Voyager Through Time and Space.

Plus:

• Take the Harris Supercut Challenge!
• Pro-Kremlin paper scrubs Ukraine War casualty figures, but we have them
• Incentivizing hypocrisy gets you more (and more blatant) hypocrites

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

COLORADO: No more valedictorians in Cherry Creek. “The practices of class rank and Valedictorian status are outdated and inconsistent with what we know and believe of our students. We believe all students can learn at high levels, and learning is not a competition.”